Hi everyone. I am a newbie here and I just started carving. I recently got the tiki fever and I have done a few tiki's recently. I thought I would post a few pics to see what kind of comments I would get. I used a chainsaw and an angle grinder to carve these tiki's. I used a queen palm for one of the carvings. I am sure you can figure out which one is the queen palm. I'm not sure what type of palm I used for the second carving? And the third carving was done using a piling cut off. Any and all comments are welcome. Thanks for looking.

Pretty good firsties for sure Record07! Yeah, lots of carvers popping up around these parts lately. Welcome to TC. Pressure treated wood (pilings,green wood, yella wood) can hurt you if you come in contact with the dust. Be careful!

Will...yes, the last one is pressure treated. I found a bunch of dock piling cutoffs at the beach. I thought I might be able to practice on them. I don't know if I am going to use them again? First off, I was concerned about carving that type of wood (pressure treated, green, yellawood). Like McTiki said it's pretty nasty stuff. I was pretty careful not to inhale the dust when carving it. I wore a respirator when carving that one. Secondly, it wasn't that easy to carve. Pretty hard wood that kept layering and coming off in chunks. As far as what's next goes, I'm going to stick with using palm trees for my tikis right now. I do have some oak pieces and some Australian pine I picked up a few weeks ago. I might try using that wood as well. I really like pjc5150's work and I hope to get as good as him some day. I have also been itching to buy a nice set of chisels and gouges. I have a few cheapie chisels I can play with right now. I am still just learning and figuring out what works for me. Right now, I just want to keep trying to make better tikis. This site has really helped guide me in the right direction. I don't know where I contracted the tiki fever, but I like it.

Pjc5150.... Yes I am definitely going to come over. The holidays just got in the way. But I will be there. How often do you get a chance to get coached by a master? I can't pass up an opportunity like that. Hopefully next week?

lol...well bro, as far as florida goes, "the master" is a guy named Benzart Davis, and he lives on the east coast...right behind him would be Will Anders....and then there's the rest of us....lol... The nice thing is that you have the benefit of being able to communicate with both of those guys here.

I am but a humble student. I just stumbled over tikis a few years before you did...

Ok... so I want to post a few more pics. I took on an ambitious project of carving a large tiki (inspired by pjc5150 carvings). It is in the rough stages, I ordered the sculptors set of the flexcut chisels a few weeks back and I have been waiting for them to arrive before moving forward on the large Lano. I think they will be here tomorrow? Hopefully???.....I know they have been shipped, just itching to get them. The other pic is of my first tiki attempt. It is pretty much complete except for stain and varnish. I am not sure if I am going to stain it??? I want to play with removing a little of the burning to make it look better. And I think I might just varnish it after that??? Any thought????

I got my new Flexcut sculptors set today and decided to start a new tiki. I am carving this out of Aussie Pine. I had an itch after getting my new Flexcuts and couldnt wait to use them. So here is my new project. I just got it roughed out today. So it still needs alot of work.

Thanks Jeff. I might have to take you up on that wood offer. Sorry I didnt respond sooner. I have had a lot going on and havent been on the site lately.

Trailerpark tiki....thanks for the compliment.

Ok... I know this isnt a tiki....but I wanted to post pics anyway. I guess you could say this is my first panel???? I am carving this for a friends dad. He asked me if I could do the Marine Corp. emblem and I thought I would give it a try. I saw this stump and it was calling for me to carve something out of it. So here is where I am so far.